Happy Mother's Day: Influencer Melissa Koh gives birth to third son weeks after death of second child

The Straits Times
May 13, 2023

Weeks after the death of her second son, local lifestyle influencer Melissa Koh has given birth to her third child.

Koh shared the birth of her son, Oliver Elias Chen, on her Instagram last Friday.

Along with a carousel of photographs, Koh wrote: “He is here! We’ve welcomed baby Oliver into the world and have fallen so deeply in love with him.”

Her second child, Asher Matthias Chen, who was born with a heart condition, died in April just two months shy of his second birthday.

Asher, who was born on June 17, 2021, had two major operations before he was a month old, including an open-heart surgery the day after he was born.

Koh and her husband, photographer James Chen, have an older son, Noah Tobias Chen, aged three. They had announced in January that they were expecting another baby.

On May 2, Koh shared an Instagram post acknowledging that she was “navigating this very confusing time of immense grief and joy”.

“Welcoming new life in our family isn’t meant to overcome or erase the pain from the loss of baby Asher, neither will it replace him and fill that void in our hearts,” she wrote.

On Wednesday, she wrote that she would have been the mother of three boys under four, adding that “(Asher) would’ve been such a proud, wonderful and happy kor kor (elder brother) and I could’ve only imagined the biggest smile on his face”.

The Straits Times

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